20 Chapter 20

Lisa's eyes seemed frozen in time despite the fact that she could feel her body being shaken by Shiro's hold as he was desperately trying to bring her back to awareness and to breathing but such a thing didn't seem to happen.

When she was little she was often caught in the so-called panic attacks but the truth is that years had passed since the last time she had experienced one or better said, years had passed since he last witnessed her experiencing one and strangely despite the fact that their relationship and feelings for each other were not the same as back then, he still found himself scared of her life.

It all starts with a small mistake in breathing, a breath that will not be taken properly and suddenly like a domino begins and affects the rest.

You can stop it at first but this is just a scam because, from a difficulty of breathing, it turns into a tightness in the chest and as the hours go by you feel your insides warming up and slowly your breaths become too difficult to take. They start feeling so heavy that you lose control of them and the suffocating feeling takes over you, convincing you that you ain't able to breathe till you actually stop doing it. It was always like that for her, fear consumed her mind by the moment she would realize she couldn't breathe and the more she ordered herself to breath the more her body wouldn't comply, bringing her in a terrorized state of mind and a paralyzed body.

Behind her frozen eyes, she was screaming to be saved, consumed by the anguish of death that took over her logic. She felt like she was dying yet she couldn't even move or utter a word. Every minute she ticked away in her mind it felt like she was approaching death despite the fact that in reality it hasn't been that long that she had stopped breathing.

Today had been a very difficult day for Lisa and it seems that although as always she did what she could to hide her weaknesses this was something she could not hide, for her emotions didn't care about pretences and her inner tension and anxiety had weld up to bring her to this panic attack she was having.

Tears of desperation begun to form in her eyes and flow down her cheeks, making her look like a statue that was crying for no face muscle moved on her for no matter how much she commanded herself to inhale, everything felt motionless in her world. Those tears being the only sign she could display of the hell that had broken inside her that very moment.

"Look at me! Everything is fine! I'm here! Calm down and breathe." Shiro tried to reassure her, his own hands that cupped her face shaking a bit as the minutes passed and her lips were starting to turn blue from lack of oxygen.

He brought his face closer to his letting his forehead rest against hers, in an attempt to disclose the world around them and make her focus on his eyes only.

"Come on, breathe. I'm by your side."

His words were tender and gentle and his orbs started looking like a calm desert that was sucking her in, deeply in the comfort they were gifting, to a point that Lisa started feeling safe and strong enough to snap out of it. All it took was a whisper of his saying her name one more time and suddenly she managed to leave a breath out of her lips,as loudly and rashly as someone who had just returned from the depths of a dive on cold waters.

She begun to tremble and breathe heavily as her chest ached terribly like it usually continues after three days or so after an episode like this. It made her feel as if she had been drowning and her lungs were in pain.

Shiro didn't hesitate to pull her in his embrace and keep her tightly only for her to burst into tears once in his arms for they still felt like a safe space to her subconsciousness that was basically ruling her actions at that moment.

Lisa always hated her weaknesses and whenever she was to feel herself close to a panic attack, she would usually walk away and go through it on her own for no one owed her anything to see such a sight. She always wanted to be strong in the eyes of the people she cared about so they will never hesitate to go to her for whatever reason. She wanted to be the pillar they could lean on and not disappoint them in any case or make them pity her.

Shiro just held her in his arms, stroking her hair as he for that moment had thrown behind his hatred for her along with the amount of pain the betrayal of the girl he knew from a young age and the one that later became his best friend, his partner and his secret love, since he never confessed his romantic feelings for her, scared of ruining their precious relationship. A friendship that she ruined instead in the worst way possible for him.

It took a while to feel her fall calmer in his arms and he couldn't help but feel relieved momentarily, unknowingly hiding his face at the crook of her neck, taking in her warmth and her intoxicating scent.

"You got it, good job. Good job." He softly spoke against her skin, as he felt his own chest getting tight from the burden that this startle had caused him. He held her close till she fell sound asleep in his arms and he found himself now staring at her face from that close proximity.

"Why did it have to go down like that? Why did we have to be like this?" He mumbled to himself, as in eyes reflected a fragment of his regret and pain for he can't change the past regardless of what he feels.

"I know that even if I was to be given an opportunity to go back in time, you would do surely it again and that is why I can not forgive you. Because it was not a mistake, you did it on purpose. You betrayed me. You hurt me willingly." He reminded himself of the bitter truth then proceeded to snap out of his entangled emotional state and carry her to his bed, where he laid her carefully.

"Whoever hurts intentionally means that they don't care about you. You didn't care so don't expect me to care about you either." He spoke to her despite the fact that she wasn't able to listen to her as his hand reached for her cheek and took hold of a strand of hair that was keeping him from seeing her closed eyes properly and tagged it behind her ear slowly.

"Your weaknesses are your issues and I won't help you with them anymore. If something I intend to use them all against you."

His eyes left any feeling he may have been carrying fade away from the display and instead his ego and pride took the wheel of his mind, filling him with his iron will to honour his pain and not betray his own self for someone like her. Someone that deserved to be hated just as much as he had ever trusted her and loved her for she proved to be nothing but a knife, that stubbed his back when he least expecting, leaving him a wound that was bleeding to this day.

---- Time skip ---

"Oh gosh~ my head is about to explode." Dimitra complaint as she took a pill from the floppy disk that Sophia had left on the table before she went to fetch some water from the kitchen and returned.

"Mine is no better. Here, Take it" Sophia extended towards her the glass of water and Dimitra swallowed her pill and then her water then went to plop her tired body on the couch.

"Have you seen Lisa? I checked on her room but she wasn't there." Dimitra question as despite waking up with a terrible headache this early in the morning, she still had looked around the house for her, intending to ask her for help with her hangover.

"I do not care where's she at but when she comes I am totally scolding her. Since she knows that I do not handle drinking well and it gets to me easily yet she still didn't stop me! Gosh, why I did that to myself" Sophia held her throbbing head in between her palms, speaking with a low voice as the high intonation caused her more pain.

"And I have a lecture to attend in two hours from now. How will I go in such a state." Dimitra sighs as she stared at nothing for a moment, regretting life and having a will to just disappear in thin air but obviously such thing couldn't happen so she just pushed herself to get up and go get ready. She couldn't skip after all since she had also arranged meeting with the people that were to take part in her mini film and she definitely couldn't leave them hanging.

The doorbell went off as soon as Dimitra arrived at the door of her room and before entering she simply told Sophia to go get it, for she definitely didn't plan to do so.

Sophia got up even though she was feeling like a zombie. Her own head felt too heavy for her shoulders to carry yet somehow she made it to the door without losing her balance.

Sophia looked at Jamie who apparently was the one that had thought that it was a good idea to visit them so early in the morning especially after that party they went through yesterday and before she even got the chance to greet him a good morning or give him her death stare for his visit wasn't welcomed at that moment, he just pushed her and passed her by, entering the apartment in a hurry.

"What the- hey! This is not your house! Where do you think you are going?!" Sophia rushed after him as Jamie walked towards the rooms.

"The middle door, whose room is it?" He halted his steps and finally threw his gaze at Sophia which pointed at herself reflexively despite the fact that she wasn't understanding what was going on with him and his absurd behavior.

"Wow, wow! Wait, you can't enter like that!" Sophia tried to stop him but he had already gotten inside her bedroom and without a split moment of hesitation,Jamie started messing things around,in search of something.

"Hey! Seriously get out of my room! Are you crazy? I won't hesitate to punch you, just so you know. Get out!" Sophia shouted at him, feeling threatened by his actions as well as violated for that was her personal space and her belongings and it definitely didn't felt nice having someone touch her things without her permission.

"I'm very sorry but it's very important. Yesterday, I sneaked out of painting and crashed into this room to rest. I had something in my pocket and it most likely must have fallen here since I looked everywhere else for it. It's definitely somewhere in this room and I need to find it quickly!" Jamie's anxiety travelled visibly through his eyes as he kept looking around the floor in hopes of finding the sight of his belonging.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Sneaking away while we were all working? Traitor!" Sophia told him as she gave him a stern look and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Sophia that is not our issue right now. Please help me find it and I promise I will do you any favours you want." Jamie offered her, for he surely knew that if someone else was to find it, it would cause a lot of misunderstandings for him with his friend, because he has the bad habit of writing his name on the things he owns, in order for the rest of his roommates to not get confused with or take his belongings without informing him.

However, surely he was not gonna be the only one in trouble if his belonging was to be found by someone else in her room because Sophia would be caught up in the mess too for it was her room.

"What even is that thing that you lost that's worth justifying breaking into someone's room anyways? What are we supposed to be looking for?!" Sophia asked him as she still does not know what was she supposed to help him with.

Jamie fell quiet for a moment, his eyes travelling away from her as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, finding it not that easy after all to say out loud the thing he had lost.

"Em ... A small thing...Blue one ... With my name on it ... Which so happened to basically be a... condom."

" A What!!!!??"

----- To be continued...